


Kuroo Fights With A Fish

by jellyryans (ryankellycc)



Series: Ocean Outreach [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Day At The Beach, Dramatic First Meetings, Fluff, Gen, M/M, almost drowning (sort of), merpeople are real and they like making friends with Nekoma, yaku-merm and flip-flop Kuroo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 10:23:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20691947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryankellycc/pseuds/jellyryans
Summary: Kenma abandons Kuroo at the beach. He isn't bored for very long.





	Kuroo Fights With A Fish

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: character is afraid they'll drown, so there's a bit of description about falling in the water and panicking.
> 
> This one shot is set after Kenma's Curious Company.

For someone that hated running during practice, Kenma disappeared like the goddamned Flash. 

Kuroo checked his phone one last time before slipping it back into the plastic waterproof case his mom insisted on him taking and shoving the case into the front pocket of his shoulder bag. He plucked at the front of his shirt to peel it from his chest. 

“A decade of friendship,” he mumbled under his breath as he lifted his right foot, letting the sand loose from his flip flops. His feet were still covered in it and attracting more granules by the second, but getting rid of the excess grit still felt like an accomplishment. 

He figured anything would feel like an accomplishment in the face of his most recent abandonment. 

Earlier in the week, Kenma had quietly caught his attention during one of their study sessions. The ambient light from the screen reflected in his eyes, which were serious as ever, and asked how hard it would be to get back to the same beach they had visited for their team outing.

He was forced to blink away the euphoria of having his best friend not only ask something of him but also actually _wanting_ to be somewhere other than his room. 

He’d forgotten, in that state of bliss, that Kenma had wanted to go because he’d met a merperson. 

It had been easy to brush it off as a joke, or hallucination from heatstroke, dehydration, starvation, or any of the other ways in which Kenma decided not to take care of himself, but Kenma had never let it go. He’d glimpsed Kenma reading articles with busty cartoon mermaid clipart and scrolling through unofficial and frankly pornographic pictures of the buff shark guy from the game he liked. 

Kenma had noticed him noticing, of course, but he didn’t bring it up again and Kuroo didn’t ask.

He didn’t know where to start. 

There was no way he could believe Kenma’s assertion of the existence of merpeople and there was no way he could dismiss it.Kenma had never been one for hyperbole, dramatics for attention, or going out of his way for long-game pranks. Even if it was some sort of delirious vision, Kenma’s undivided interest hadn’t faded. 

Looking out at the ocean before finding a place to settle for the afternoon, he took a deep swig from one of the water bottles nestled in his backpack and, just as he was lowering the water bottle, he caught a flicker of red. 

If he’d moved his head even a fraction of a centimeter differently, or a millisecond later, he would’ve missed the streak of vibrant color as it disappeared behind the rocky outcropping that shot out into the water.

He scanned the waves for another fiery glimmer and squinted at the jetty, but all he caught were the cool colors of the ocean and the bright white reflection of the sun. It was an obvious trick of the light, yet that out-of-place red continued to bug him even as he clomped toward an empty swath of sand to lay out his towel. 

It wasn’t a color that one would find in the oceans close to the city; it looked tropical, like something you’d find diving or when ogling fish at a store. 

And even if it seeing bright flashes of color at the shoreline was normal, whatever had the color was big enough for Kuroo to notice, tens of meters from the water, and it was fast. 

He eyed the jetty again before dropping his backpack to unpack his towel. 

“Damnit,” he sighed, earning a glare from the couple sunbathing next to him. 

What was the phrase they learned in English the other week? 

_Curiosity killed the cat_. 

The rocks that made up the outcropping were close together and smooth enough that Kuroo figured he’d be able to climb out at least as far as he needed to appease his curiosity. 

He peeked over his shoulders at the lifeguards on either side of the outcropping. People, especially those clad in cheap flip-flops and carrying a giant backpack, were probably not allowed to climb where he was, but he watched until he was at least eighty-five percent sure neither of the lifeguards were going to jump out of their chairs to hoist himself up on to the rocks. 

Warmth seeped through the thin soles of his sandals and burned his palms when he had to catch himself from slipping, but he didn’t stop until he made it out to the spot where he saw the color disappear.

He looked down past his toes, less sandy now than when he’d started, into the murky water. 

There was nothing there, as he expected, but, for the first time since arriving, he felt the chill of the ocean breeze coming off the water. He took a deep breath, tasting the salt on his lips and imagining that the extra sodium was somehow cleaning out his lungs. The throngs of beach-goers faded into the background, their conversations and peals of laughter dulled to a low hum. Out there, it was only him and the ocean, and he couldn’t remember the last time he felt so free. 

He spotted a cluster of rocks that looked like the grotto where he found Kenma the last time they were there.

Did he find his merperson? 

Red appeared at the edge of his vision and his laughter caught in his throat. 

He kneeled as close to the water as he could get, in between the rocks that had gotten more jagged and further apart, and held his pose, breathing slowly, like if he moved he wouldn’t get another chance to figure out the answer to whatever mystery he’d gotten himself involved in.

Just as his legs started to shake, a human head popped out of the water. 

Kuroo lost his balance. 

He surfaced with a loud inhale, sucking air back into his lungs as the frigid ocean water seized his muscles.

The current was strong enough to rip him away from the rocks, but even with his long arms, he scrabbling up the sides without finding purchase. There was nothing to grab on to, and, even if there were, the rocks were slippery with algae he hadn’t noticed before. He tried to remember every single emergency drill and training he’d been a part of, only vaguely conscious of the fact that the last thing he should do was panic even though he was absolutely sure that the only valid reaction to his predicament was panic. 

He felt it then, something strong and solid beneath his feet, lifting him high enough that he was able to grip the side of a flat-ish rock and pull himself from the water. He flopped back on to dry land just as gracefully as he’d fallen into the water moments before and let his eyes close as he forcibly slowed his breathing. 

When his heart rate slowed to a more normal pace, the entire situation hit him like serve directly to the face. 

“What the,” he started, only to finish with a croak. His throat still burned from the salt water and, even though his eyes weren’t adjusting much better, he could still see the face of the person in the water, hovering just above the surface. 

He should’ve been afraid, especially since the same face had startled him (very nearly) to (literal) death, but it also occurred to him that whatever it was might also have saved his life. 

Their unblinking eyes held him in place, and suddenly Kuroo was aware of every strand of hair plastered unattractively against his skull. He ran through it with both of his hands, but it still fell, limply framing his face, and he almost missed the upturn of the creature’s mouth. It took him another moment to register the rasping noises as laughter.

“This was your fault!” he blurted out. 

The head jerked and, if Kuroo didn’t know better, they looked offended. 

“It was,” Kuroo said more confidently. 

The creature chittered, shaking its head and raising slightly webbed hands out of the water to gesture at their position like they couldn’t possibly have done anything from where they were. 

Kuroo moved closer to the edge and braced himself awkwardly so he could use his arms, too. “You just popped out of the water with no warning, therefore, your fault.”

The face glided closer and pointed at Kuroo with a huff before looking into the air and whistling, as if a mythical creature just hung around humans like it was something that happened and Kuroo was the one blowing his own near-death experience out of proportion. 

Soon, and despite the language barrier, they were arguing, and the merperson had gotten close enough that they had gripped the sides of the rock and pulled themselves out just far enough for Kuroo to confirm that he was, in fact, conversing with a merperson.

The merperson’s tail was same deep red that had caught his eye from the beach, shiny and deep like a coat of fresh paint, but the red was swirled with splotches of white that were so bright Kuroo had to avert his eyes when the scales caught the sun. On top of the outrage of this creature denying his involvement in Kuroo’s sopping predicament, the adrenaline from almost drowning, and the fluttering nerves of meeting a fantastic creature, he was struck with a wave of nostalgia, remembering his moms hovering over his shoulder while he scooped fish every summer at Natsu Matsuri. 

Kuroo knew he was staring, but he couldn’t look away.

The red and white scales dappled the merperson’s midsection like spilled jewels until they disappeared into swaths of bare skin. Kuroo swallowed dryly as he dragged his eyes across their flat chest, up the curves of their collarbone and rounded chin. The merperson’s delicate nose looked like it could’ve been painted with a fine-tip brush and their hazel eyes matched their hair, a color too dark to be blonde but, drying in the sun, too light to be brown, and shimmering different shades depending on the angle that reflected the sun. 

His stomach swooped like he’d just crested the top of a roller coaster. The merperson might be hissing at him like an angry cat but he was exquisite, and Kuroo needed to know everything.

Looking through water at the rest of their tail gave him a shaky estimate of the merperson’s size, but they didn’t look nearly as big as he thought they’d be. Granted, he’d never seen a merperson before and had no frame of reference, but he rolled with it and decided they were petite.

Cute, his brain supplied unhelpfully. 

“What the hell’s the matter with me?”

Kuroo had mumbled the rhetorical question under his breath, but the creature must’ve heard him because they started pointing at Kuroo’s hair and mimicking the way it flopped. Frustration welled up with Kuroo’s wounded pride, as well as the bewildering desire to sit there and argue with the beautiful creature for the rest of his days.

“Listen,” Kuroo said, “My hair was perfectly fine until a goldfish popped out of the water and almost lured me to my death.” 

The merperson looked down that their tail and back up at Kuroo with a deeply furrowed brow and a scowl that outmatched even Kenma’s mother when she found them up too late. They puffed out their chest and let out a sharp trill. 

Kuroo laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “You absolutely are a goldfish,” he said through short bursts of laughter. “How do you even live out there with the sharks? You’re so small.”

At this, the merperson chittered and trilled and hissed and made noises that Kuroo wasn’t even sure had a name in Japanese. Kuroo laughed harder, verging on hysteria. “I’m just being honest,” he said as seriously as he could manage. 

The merperson brought both of their hands up in an exaggerated arc, from Kuroo’s feet to his heat, and rolled their eyes. 

“Being tall is much better than being short.”

The creature’s jaw dropped like it had never heard anything more preposterous and they crossed their arms over their chest and shook their head dramatically. 

They had done nothing but argue, but once the embers of Kuroo’s competitive nature were stoked, he let the flames burn, and every time he caught the merperson attempted to hide their smile, the fire burst into sparks. 

“Where are your shoes?”

“Lost them to the ocean,” Kuroo said, wiggling his toes on the hot pavement where they’d agreed to meet. He decided to quash any qualms about having to walk around barefoot as soon as a certain goldfish held his shoes above the water and then disappeared, like his being embarrassed meant his merperson _won_. 

Kenma looked up from his phone and squinted like he was actually seeing Kuroo for the first time. “And your bag is wet.”

“Almost lost that to the ocean as well.”

“I can’t believe you fell in,” Kenma said, turning back to his phone with a smile.

“Excuse you, I almost died.”

Kenma tucked the corners of his mouth. “Why didn’t you?”

“Jesus Ken,” Kuroo huffed. 

“You’re not answering my question.”

“A goldfish saved my life,” Kuroo said nonchalantly. “And then it spent the next four hours arguing with me.”

“You were arguing with a fish,” Kenma deadpanned. 

“Oh c’mon,” Kuroo said. “You got to spring your mermaid story-"

“Merperson.”

“You got to spring your merperson story on me and I didn’t make a single judgement, like a good friend should.”

“You thought I was having a heat stroke.”

“Heatstroke is serious!”

Kenma locked the screen on his phone and shoved it into his hoodie pocket. “So are merpeople.”

Kuroo couldn’t argue, and for some reason the absence of a challenge felt like an elbow to his side, so he joined Kenma in staring out at the ocean.

**Author's Note:**

> Can't leave well enough alone, won't leave well enough alone. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
